


Alea Jacta Est

by Dardrea



Series: Dulce Periculum [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Anal, BDSM, Bondage, Bretons, Cyrodiil, F/M, Imperial City, Orcs, Orsimer - Freeform, PWP, Set in the Imperial City during the events of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Teratophilia, The Gray Fox - Freeform - Freeform, Thieves Guild, mdom, orc boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 12:07:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17981039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dardrea/pseuds/Dardrea
Summary: Spar's a Breton thief living in the Imperial City in Cyrodiil. The Great War is long done and the Aldmeri Dominion practically run the Empire. Undercurrents of discontent are stirring, war is threatening again in the far corners of the realm, but that all means little to her after she finds Nocturnal's Cowl and unwillingly takes up the mantle of the Gray Fox--and responsibility for everyone who puts their trust in the resurgent Thieves Guild.(Yeah, noooo, this one's even more about the pwp than the last one, mind the tags.)





	Alea Jacta Est

**Author's Note:**

> (The Die is Cast)

Uri’s hand closed on Spar’s, just as her fingertips were sliding into his pocket.

She put on an innocent face but his expression was annoyed and he didn’t release her.

“Will you stop doing that?” he asked.

She didn’t actually bother to deny it. “I have to demonstrate.”

He raised a brow. “Not on me.”

 “You have another target in mind?” She cocked her head innocently.

His glare split between her and the three lanky youngsters he’d known would be watching from close by. Kae snickered into her elbow; Taeg and Sequana did a better of job of aping their mentor and looking innocent and confused. “You shouldn’t be teaching them things like this. They’re too young.”

Her face softened. “And they don’t have a better shot at a life, not here, in this city. They’ll learn in safety down with us, and they’ll put off living the life for a bit longer.”

He let her go but he didn’t look happy. He couldn’t argue. They were making a new world down here, and she knew he was only staying because he had some hope they were laying seed for a new world above as well, but there was no safe place in either for the street kids. Yet.

“Well, demonstrate on the other ‘teachers.’”

* * *

He’d been so distracted by the book he was reading that she was pulling her hand _out_ of his pocket when he snagged it.

He huffed and pulled her around in front of him.

She let him.

“I told you to cut it out.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She blinked.

He looked around for her pupils but didn’t see any of them and his face darkened in suspicion.

She shrugged. “What? You said to stop using you to demonstrate. I listened.”

“Right.”

“I listen!”

He stared pointedly down at her captive hand. “Then what’s this?”

She grinned and leaned in closer. “Well, _I_ still need to practice, don’t I?” She kissed his cheek and watched him when she pulled away, not able to go far because he still hadn’t let her go.

He sighed but his lips were twitching, trying not to smile back. “I don’t even have anything for you to steal, little thief. You could find a richer mark.”

She bit her lip and shook her head sadly. “Always so suspicious of me. You know planting something on someone can be a lot harder than taking something.”

His mouth fell open, annoyance chasing the humor off again. This still wasn’t his world. He fit in better with the beggars, particularly the ex-soldiers, than with the other members of the nascent Thieves’ Guild. He grunted and his eyes flashed and he pulled her hand up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of it. Even the kiss felt like a warning.

“You’d best watch out, little one. I catch you with your hand in my pocket again, for whatever reason, and I’ll show you how the city guard deals with stubborn little law-breakers.” Holding her gaze, challenging her with it, he bit the palm of her hand, just at the base of her thumb.

She shivered. “Yeah?” It was a breathless sound. She’d have been embarrassed for anyone else to hear her make it.

He shook his head at her obvious lack of regret and let her feel the edge of his teeth and tusks, before he finally let go of her wrist.

“Don’t push it,” he said.

She smirked, but, “Of course not,” she agreed cheerfully, turning on her heel and vanishing back towards the main “street.”

* * *

He’d gone out a ways looking for some privacy, the better to focus on the book the old man had given him. A history of the Blades. The book was outlawed, just like the order had been, and all copies were supposed to have been burned, but the sewer was full of things that the Empire and the Dominion thought shouldn’t exist.

He was almost sure Spar was out of sight. Sneaky as she was, even without that mask of hers, he couldn’t always tell, but after two months he believed he had a pretty good sense of her.

He slipped his hand into the pocket she’d been in and pulled out a folded piece of paper that hadn’t been there earlier. He opened it and read the message she’d left him, bursting out in horrified laughter before he could stifle it.

Grinning, he folded it back up and tucked it into his shirt pocket instead. Foolish girl.

* * *

His hand closed on her wrist like an iron manacle.

His voice was a dangerous rumble. “What did I tell you, little thief?”

She tried to play innocent, even though he’d never been fooled, not from the first moment they’d met. “I don’t know what you mean. Let go.”

She pulled on the arm he’d caught but she may as well have been trying to topple a guard tower with a feather.

He pulled her around to face him and pressed her to the door he’d been about to open, moving in against her until he had her pinned with his hips. That wasn’t playing fair.

She twisted her arm, trying to slip it out of his hold but he wasn’t new to this sort of thing either, and he didn’t come close to losing her. He frowned and suddenly he’d turned her around, pressing her front against the door. He caught her other arm before she understood what he was doing and he’d bound her wrists together, behind her, faster than she could squirm free.

She was good at untying knots but he wasn’t so bad at tying them, and the soft cloth he’d used—a strip of the stuff he carried to clean his sword—tightened as she carefully tugged at it rather than loosening. She tugged anyway, annoyed now, and huffed in her frustration, twisting to glare at him over her shoulder.

He grinned, a wolfish expression, all white teeth and bright eyes. “Don’t like that, little thief? Too bad,” he said. He put his hands on the door, on either side of her head and pressed his hips against her again. She sighed, leaning her head against the wood. “It’s past time you answer for your crimes.”

There was a languid sort of heat to the moment, the way he had her pinned, tied even, his big body surrounding her, his eyes dark and shining with promise.

She’d been picking at him for over a week. She probably owed him—but thieves didn’t worry about debts.

He leaned in to kiss her, his body arching around her, his face softening. She ducked under his arm, dropped really, and broke out in a dash—

That he ended easily by hooking one of her arms. The way they were tied she couldn’t even slip out of his grip and he’d caught her when she was hardly more than a few steps away from him.

“Seriously?” he muttered, eyes narrowing.

Possibly she should have just let him kiss her.

“I—”

“Save it for the interrogation.”

_Interrogation?_

He fumbled his key into the lock and pushed her firmly through his door, locking it behind them in near the same motion that he closed it.

* * *

She shuffled around the dark room, following the sound of him and keeping him in front of her while he lazily strode from corner to corner, lighting the lanterns.

Her wrists were still tied behind her back, in spite of her subtle efforts, and it kept her off balance.

When he was done he crossed his arms and stared at her, looking so stern she couldn’t help breaking out in a grin. Even if it was edged with a fluttery nervousness.

“Oh, come on, green-boy, you’re not really going to do it like this, are you?” She couldn’t show him her still-bound—damn it—wrists without putting her back to him, so she just sort of flapped her elbows, like she was miming a chicken.

“Isn’t ‘this’ what you’ve been pushing for?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He reached into his breast pocket, and as much as she liked him in armor, there was definitely something about him with that dark, soft linen forming a loose vee partway down his chest. She licked her lips and he waved a handful of familiar, folded pieces of paper at her.

“What are those?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes and stalked closer. She held her ground, even when he was towering over her.

“I think you know.”

She knew she hadn’t expected him to carry them around. She shrugged. “What? You don’t like literature? As often as you have your nose in a book, I’d have thought you’d appreciate it. Not that I know what’s written on them—”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well anyway, you can’t prove it was me,” she said primly.

He sighed, but there was a hint of amusement playing around his lips while he stared her down. “I didn’t have anything on me when I was walking back here,” he said. “I checked. And then I find you with your hand in my pocket, so if there’s anything now—”

He made of show of slowly reaching into his pants pockets, not looking away from her face for a second. She held her breath.

His right hand came up with another folded sheet and he crinkled it triumphantly.

“You still can’t prove it was me.”

He sighed again and shook his head. “Recalcitrant little thief. This will go so much easier for you if you just confess.”

“Make me,” she said.

He laughed. “I should make you read it out loud. I should make you read _all of them_ out loud.”

She burst out laughing at that. “I dare you!”

He looked away first, and then unfolded the paper and read her latest find as though that had been his purpose all along.

His choked laughter, startled and aghast, was everything she’d have wished. She just hoped they’d all won similar reactions: he hadn’t admitted to having found any of her little notes, apparently waiting until he could catch her in the act.

“So what’s it say, green-boy? Do you want me to read it to you?” she offered, taunting.

He folded it up with the others and backed away, still shaking his head as he set the small stack of papers on the table by his bed. There were only four so far, but she had another dozen in her room waiting to be passed off.

“Evidence,” he grunted, resting his fingertips on the papers for a moment longer.

“Evidence of what? You still don’t have any proof of wrongdoing.” She lifted her chin, but it was hard to look too imposing when she was so much shorter than him and bound, _still_. She really needed to work on her knots.

He strode back to her so purposefully she almost backed up; it wasn’t a huge room and he filled it up, but he seemed to fill any space she shared with him. She steeled her spine and held her ground, though. She wasn’t a girl who backed down to such obvious attempts at intimidation.

He touched her jaw, her chin, feather-light with his big, warm fingers, tilting her head back so he could examine her face.

His mouth was slightly parted, giving her a glimpse of those glowing white teeth. Her own lips parted in an instinctive response, and in an unspoken offer, but she could only watch his curl up in a knowing smile.

“I warned you before: all thieves face justice, eventually,” he said gently, brushing her lips with the pad of his thumb. “And when they’re caught—they face punishment.”

Something inside her clenched. It wasn’t fear, but it wasn’t entirely divorced from it, either.

“You still can’t prove it was me,” she protested.

His grin widened and his hand curled around the small of her back, under her bound wrists. “So worried about proof! I don’t have to. I just have to get you to confess.”

“Fat chance.”

He spun her around in his arms. “Then the interrogation begins with a full body search. If you really have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear and this will be over quickly. I thank you for your cooperation, citizen.”

Her laugh at his silliness turned into a giggle when he slid his hand into one of her hidden pockets and playfully stroked her ribs through the soft inner lining. Her back was pressed to his chest and he held the mask up in front of her.

“And what’s this?” he asked.

“A gift, from a lover—” His other hand snaked up and tangled in her hair, tugging her head back and turning it to look at him again.

His expression was wry, disbelieving.

“…In a manner of speaking.”

“We’ll come back to that, then. And this?” Another of her pockets ruthlessly plundered and this time he held out her ring.

“An old family heirloom.”

“Indeed.”

He spread his hand on her belly to keep her where she was and reached behind him, presumably depositing the mask and ring with the notes. Adding them to his pile of ‘evidence.’

The hand on her belly dipped a little lower; he spread the other one across her ribs, just under her breasts. She couldn’t help wiggling. What his armor hid, his ‘civilian’ clothes couldn’t, and something hard was prodding insistently at her back where she pressed against him.

“Repent, little thief. Confess and I’ll go easy on you.”

“Never,” she swore, savoring the word.

He exhaled deeply and kissed the side of her neck. Then lower. Then nuzzled into the collar of her jerkin, to nibble at the base of her throat.

She panted—and his hands roamed over her. He took the daggers she wore on her belt, and the smaller one hidden in her top. He found five lockpicks in one pocket and her hidden money pouch in another. That one stopped him. He held it up and turned it in his hand.

“It’s mine!” she groused, annoyed, knowing exactly why it had given him pause. “It’s only smart, so you’re never without. A girl can’t be blamed for keeping _some_ secrets.”

Without comment he pulled her other money pouch, the decoy, off its loop on her belt, and held them both up in front of them for comparison. The decoy was considerably lighter, that was the point of it.

The weight of his—genuine—suspicion chilled her. Killed a little of her pleasure. She dropped her shoulders forward, distancing herself.

Both pouches disappeared and he slid his hands around her waist, keeping her close. He kissed her neck again and she recognized the unspoken apology. Even though she didn’t deserve it. Bedroom play aside, she _was_ a thief and they both knew it and they both knew he wasn’t comfortable with it.

“Prisoners don’t get secrets,” he said, with another kiss, another little nibble, another brush of his tusks up her neck, leaving the rest for a reckoning some other day.

She was fine with that. “Am I your prisoner?”

“For the good of society.” His heavy arms had crossed over her belly, as though he really were trying to keep her back from some mischief. “Criminals can’t be allowed to wander free.”

She smiled a little, humorless, because the truth was intruding again and she didn’t like it. But she leaned into his embrace and rested her head back on his shoulder, giving him her neck with a sigh.

Sneaky bastard, she’d thought he was done but she felt it when his fingertips slid over and then into another pocket hidden in a seam along her side and pulled out another pair of lock picks. She sighed and rubbed her head back and forth across his chest, the smallest, subtlest protest.

He chuckled, a rough vibration of a sound that sent a shiver through her, and he nipped at her throat. “You could speed this along by telling me how to find the rest of it—your contraband.”

And she knew he was teasing, playing, and she could have lied, or let him just keep going but—

“My right breast,” she said. It wasn’t the same as a confession, for the purpose of the game, but it was something more than that. He’d never found that pocket. Maybe he never would have.

After a moment, a strange hesitation, he stroked her there. She could tell he thought it was a trick. A way to get him to feel her up, maybe. It didn’t take him too long to find it though, another pick, tucked away where she was almost certain he was too much of a gentleman to have looked that close in almost any other circumstance.

“Left boot. And right.”

He had to leave her standing on her own so he crouch to check those two. She felt exposed, alone without him at her back, even though he was still there, just… lower.

He came up with her emergency daggers.

“The waist of my pants, in the back. Inside.”

The words were bitter on her tongue. She was giving away too much, but she felt a growing defiance in it. And fear, and anger, and other things she couldn’t even name.

But she felt heat when he lifted her tunic in the back to get at the top of her pants. She bit her lip when his fingers slid down between the material and her skin. The slight scrape of his nails...

He kissed her temple and she didn’t want to say the last one, but she did, laying herself bare for him without losing a single item of clothing. Her hands clasped together in her bonds, giving up on the idea of freeing herself.

She _was_ his prisoner. He’d run her to ground long ago, she just hadn’t been wary enough to see the trap had already closed.

“Left thigh. Inseam.”

He hesitated again, but she just leaned into him and waited. His touch was so gentle for all his size, all his impressive strength. There were worse captors in the world.

She could have told him he’d have to go higher, he was too low at her knee, but she just waited and let him find it. Even through the leather, her skin came alive at the touch of his clever, searching fingertips. She shivered, trembled, and when his knuckles and the back of his hand brushed the crotch of her pants, just a fraction of a second before he found the last pocket, the last hidden pick, and pulled away—she tried to hide her face against him, an impossible task when they were standing with her back pressed to his chest.

He set that last no-longer-hidden prize aside and pulled her against him again, hugging her.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“That’s everything.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.” Her voice was hoarse.

“I know—Spar, sweet, do you want to stop?”

He was holding her, just holding her, though she didn’t know how she could have described the difference from what he’d been doing all along.

“Stop? What? Why?” she sounded dazed to her own ears. She felt it, a little.

He turned her so she was facing him, and kissed her lips, softly, and then her forehead, before he tucked her in against him, resting his chin on the crown of her head. “Because we don’t have to. I didn’t mean to push.”

“Why not? I always do?” She was talking into the material of his tunic.

He chuckled and just that was enough to make some part of her relax. She couldn’t return the embrace until he untied her but she could lean on that strength he shared so willingly.

“You do. You definitely do.”

He wasn’t an enemy. And if he was the face of justice, it was a face of kindness too. Mercy and honor and never cruelty, and as little time as she’d known him, she trusted him.

She sighed. She hadn’t been stalking him with dirty poetry all week just to back off when things got sticky.

“You’re giving up, then?”

A pause. “What?” he asked.

She smiled, even though he couldn’t see it, and she became just a little less soft where she was leaning into his embrace.

“You admit you can’t prove anything and you’re going to let me go?” She scoffed. “So much for the dedication of the city guard. I knew you’d cave before I did.”

He held her away from him and looked down at her face, brows raised. She wasn’t the only one who had trouble ignoring a challenge.

“Is that so?”

Now that he could see her she still didn’t hide her grin, flashing him teeth in an animal show of aggression. “It clearly is.” She sighed dramatically. “You may as well untie me now. Nothing more to do but let another one slip through your fingers.”

He squeezed her. “That sounded like a confession to me.”

“It was not. You can’t pass off your lack of competence onto me.”

His jaw worked for a moment. Then—“You may be right,” he said smoothly. Before she could figure out what his new angle was he’d scooped her up into his arms, making her yelp. She couldn’t grab onto him for balance, but she knew he wouldn’t drop her, however precarious it felt.

“What—”

He set her down next to the wall, not far from the door.

“If the criminal can’t be counted on to be reasonable, harsher methods of interrogation may be authorized.”

He pushed her face-first against the wall, though not _so_ harshly, and to her surprise he started deftly untying the knots she’d been working on with such little success since he’d tied them. In a moment he had her hands free of the cloth strip.

“Showoff,” she muttered.

He laughed, holding her wrists and moving them above her head, together, where he could hold them in one hand. “You haven’t begun to see the full… _competence_ of the city guard,” he said against her ear. He pressed into her for a moment, just a moment, all of his body against all of hers and she could have called the game in his favor then. She needed him. She always needed him. It didn’t take much to stoke this fire.

Her turned her head and kissed her, a command, a taking. She arched and twisted herself, urging him to give her more.

She felt his lips curl in a smile just before he pulled away.

“Oh, c’mon…”

His free hand smoothed the front of her jerkin and she was hopeful.

“Unless you have something particular to say, we do this my way, little thief.” He kissed the back of her neck and started unfastening the buckles that kept her jerkin on. She squirmed, but he had enough practice by now, even one-handed, even from behind. Her leather armor was hanging open from her shoulders in moments, slow, frustrating moments, because he didn’t let his hand wander and seemed to be careful not to even brush the skin that was so desperate for his touch.

At least until he slid up under the hem of her linen undershirt to paint burning circles across her belly with his fingertips. “I’ll let your hands go, little thief, so I can take your shirt off. _If_ you promise you won’t try anything.”

“And if I don’t promise?”

He moved higher until he was just grazing the underside of her breasts. “Then I’ll tie you up again and leave your clothes where they are.” He slid his hand down, just to the top of her breeches. “And I won’t touch you at all…”

“I promise!”

“But can I trust you?”

“This time.”

He laughed. “Keep your word, or it’s a lonely night in the stocks for you, little thief.”

“Yessir.”

He moved his hand from her wrists but didn’t move his body. He would have caught her if she hadn’t meant her promise, but there was only so far she was willing to push him. They didn’t have stocks down here, as far as anyone had pointed out to her, anyway, but she wouldn’t risk him sticking to his promise not to touch her.

He rewarded her with both of his hands sliding up under her shirt to cup her breasts. He didn’t waste his time either, brushing his thumbs knowingly across her nipples when he reached them, making her gasp and wriggle, moving against his hands like a cat begging for affection.

“I like that—‘sir,’” he mused. “Very respectful. Perhaps that’s how you should refer to me for the rest of this interrogation, little thief. To show the proper deference to the authority of the guard.”

She snorted and he pinched her nipples in warning. Her breath caught but she was still more worried he’d stop than that he’d get too rough.

“Yes, sir,” she said agreeably, moaning when that earned her tits another squeeze, her nipples another teasing stroke.

And she whimpered when he stopped, pulling her with him, a step away from the wall.

“Shhh…” he soothed, amusement and no little triumph in the sound. “We’ll see just what it takes to get you to come clean, but first we have to get you ready for the trial.”

She shivered. In different circumstances—but this was _him_ , and she looked forward to any trial he put her to.

He quickly helped her shrug out of her unfastened jerkin, and then her undershirt. He stroked her shoulders and kissed her neck. When she couldn’t help herself any longer, and reached for his hands to move them back to her breasts, he scooped her back up into his arms instead, leaving her to rub herself against him in frustration, since that was all he was leaving for her, until he set her at edge of his bed.

He’d made it himself, since furniture was one resource that had certainly been scarce in the sewers and though members of the Thieves’ Guild were hardly shy about taking what they needed from the city above, beds weren’t particularly easy to move around.

Built of scrap wood, it was heavy, nearly waist high for her, and large enough to fit him which made it huge as far as she was concerned. Dibella and Mara, she was ready—but when she reached for him he quickly deflected her hands and turned her away from him, to face the bed. Then he pressed her shoulders down until she was leaning on her belly across the side of his straw-stuffed mattress. Bare-chested she could feel the soft nap of the furs he slept on, and the slight prickle of the straw underneath.

When she couldn’t help rubbing against the strange, alluring texture he stopped her with one hand pressing down between her shoulder blades, which didn’t alleviate the sensations, it just kept her from pursuing them. “Be still, little thief. Cooperation has its rewards,” he promised.

So she gave up, and stood beside the bed, her upper body lying across it, watching him move around to the foot of it. If she’d been going to try something, it would have been a good time to strike, but she was finding it hard to breathe and her limbs felt heavy and slow. And that was before she understood what he was doing, tying a length of that cloth around the far bedpost and stretching it out towards her.

“You’re going to tie me to the bed?” She could hardly get the words out, every breath was a labor around the heated weight in her chest.

“For your own protection,” he said, then ruined his perfectly indifferent delivery with a sly glance and a wolfish grin. He held out his hand for hers, the other end of the cloth at the ready.

Hesitantly, she offered it. With both of them she hadn’t been able to undo his knots; she doubted she’d easily be able to get out of this one single-handed.

In a matter of seconds he had her wrist tied to his bedpost and he was moving around to the head of the bed to fasten another cloth to the farther bedpost there.

“How is this for my protection?” she asked, giving him her other hand when he gestured for it.

She was still wearing her boots and breeches, even though she was tied down, topless, over his bed.

He stroked her back, a long, suggestive movement down the length of her spine. “To keep you from thrashing around too much and hurting yourself,” he explained.

“Thrashing?”

He cupped her ass through her pants and gave her a squeeze. “It happens. Some thieves can’t handle the consequences of their actions.”

“I can handle—”

“Anything. I know, I know.”

But the possibilities of this position—what was he planning? Was he going to spank her? His fretting over every little bruise their time together left on her skin made her find that unlikely, but the suggestive way he was stroking her ass was definitely hinting at something.

Now that she was secure, topless, and unable to escape his plans, he went to his knees and started on undoing and removing her boots. It was always the part that took the longest but he had practice with that too and he had her barefoot before she could adjust to any of the rest of it.

Then he stripped off her pants, going to his knees to finish dragging them off and out of the way and then staying down there, and she couldn’t see what he was doing from her place draped over the bed so she didn’t see it coming when he took her left ankle and pulled it out towards the nearer bedpost and tied her to it.

He did the same with her other ankle and then… she didn’t know what any of this meant but gods, she was ready to find out.

“You think you scare me, guard?” she said, but the bravado she’d hoped to project eluded her.

Without bothering to respond he reached between her legs, from underneath, sliding one thick finger inside of her. She was so wet already that even without any preamble, he was up to the knuckle and she went up on her toes and gasped.

“Fuck, _Uri!_ ”

He tutted but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her curse or her writhing.

Except to change his grip a moment later, so he could press and rub and cruelly work her clit.

She’d have come off the bed if she hadn’t been tied to it, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself.

His other hand curled under her body and caught her left tit, setting to immediate work on her nipple.

She took a shuddering breath and her vision went dark. Or perhaps she’d just closed her eyes. Either way she was helpless in his grasp and it didn’t have anything to do with her bonds.

He pulled his finger out of her, a slick slide, and painted that wetness up her body, a direct line from her cunt to her ass, slipping wetly between her cheeks to tease that other opening.

Her eyes popped open and she tried to twist around to see him, even with her breast still in his hand and her arms tied.

He was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at her face. His gaze was turned down, making his lashes into dark smudges on his cheeks. If he wasn’t doing what he was doing, coating her asshole with her own fluids, she might have been distracted by how incredibly handsome he was, but now was not that time.

She tried to find words, any words, but he lightly tugged her nipple and all she could manage was a moan.

“See, little thief? We guards have many tools for getting to the bottom of a situation.”

Was that a damned pun? Had he said that on purpose?

He pressed his finger against her asshole at the same time he pinched her nipple and he didn’t leave her enough breath to ask. He didn’t try to breach her yet, though, he was only massaging the little ring of muscle, getting her ready—

“Brutal…” she finally managed to say, no sting to the word.

And he knew it, because he only chuckled. He abandoned her breast and she whimpered, but he moved his hand down the underside of her body to lightly rub her belly, bracing her to lift her hips for him. “Not at all,” he soothed. “You’ll find we’re very careful. Very gentle. I think by the time I’m done you’ll be eager to tell me everything. And to pay your debt to the Empire.”

Her laugh was a gasp, a startled sound, because right then was when he sank his middle finger into her, and she stretched and arched her back and wished he had two more hands at least, to keep touching her breasts while he was doing the rest of it.

He’d played with her ass before but she hadn’t ever quite got up the courage to offer more. It had been enough for her to get him to believe her when she said she wasn’t fragile, just because she was small, that she wouldn’t shatter if he was too rough. That not only didn’t she mind a few bruises after a really good fuck, she didn’t think of them as a price to pay so much as a badge of honor.

In their holdings and in the world, orcs were a warrior race, she knew he had to understand the appeal of a well-earned battle scar, even for a little pink-skin.

He twisted deeper and she grunted, flexing against the insistent push, but he was up to his knuckle and couldn’t have gone farther. If he was really getting ready to do what it looked like, though—

He pulled out, always such a strange feeling, and left her, fucking _left her_ , to go… put on a kettle? He was going to make tea?

Words were still too much to ask but she managed a soft keening, the sweetest sound she could manage to call him back to her. “Soon, little one,” he promised, but his voice came from across the room and he didn’t return.

Without him there it wasn’t as comfortable of a position. Her feet hurt from being flat on the stone but his bed, though tall, wasn’t quite at a good enough angle for her to relax onto it, at least with her legs hanging off and her ankles tied to the posts.

She heaved a sigh.

“Lonely?” he teased.

“I thought you said the guard wouldn’t be cruel?”

“Oh, I definitely never said that. Just that we’d be gentle. And leave you begging for the chance to be more accommodating. Our goal is to promote rehabilitation, not just punishment.”

“Right.”

“You doubt my methods?” He’d washed his hands. That’s what heating the water had been about. And he’d tossed that water into the chamber pot and refilled the washbasin with fresh. She shifted as he returned to her, fighting a futile urge to press her thighs together.

“Well, since you have the wrong woman—” She choked.

He’d slid his hand against her cunt again, two fingers, two thick, lovely, probing fingers, working into her. She rolled her hips and pressed her body onto them.

“Do I have the wrong woman?” he mused. “Should I let you go, then? Apologize for the mix up and send you on your way?”

She shook her head frantically, grunting, doing her best to ride his deep-delving hand. His other arm came around her, reaching for her too. Delicately, he pressed her cunt open, and teased her clit, while those two fingers on the other side claimed that deep, hungry channel between her legs.

And then he stopped and she could have howled, if her throat hadn’t locked up tight with longing. He combed through her as he pulled out and again used that borrowed moisture to paint the much less pliant flesh of her ass.

He was really going to do it. He wouldn’t be going through all of this just to spank her.

She couldn’t help a flash of uncertainty when he started prodding _there_ with two fingers. She appreciated the concern, the preparation, the way he massaged her own lubricant into her trembling skin, but when he tried to open her again with two—

“Push,” he said.

So she did and she stretched around him, and his fingers, slippery from her cunt, slid home with only a little more work. A little more wiggling, more pushing, more pressure, until his knuckles were butting against her sphincter.

It was a different feeling. Fuller, and she didn’t feel like she’d enveloped him so much as he was stretching her, still. Slowly. It was the invasion his cock in her cunt never seemed to be.

He twisted, careful, gentle, as he’d promised. He pulled out a little and pushed back in. She knew that persistent stretching was the point but it still felt… odd.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as a moment passed in silence. His voice was a low, dangerous growl. He’d stop, but he really wanted this. She suddenly wondered how long he’d been thinking about it.

She grinned, and sighed and let herself relax. All the nights they’d been together lately, had he been thinking about this? Since she’d started teasing him with those notes, had this been his plan for when he finally caught her in the act again?

“Yeah,” she said, in case her body hadn’t told him loudly enough.

He exhaled sharply, rewarding her with a careful shove into her that made her toes curl. It would be his cock in a moment. His cock would be in her ass and he wanted it so much the hand that was braced on her hip trembled. She wanted to give it to him. She wanted to give him everything, every part of her, because she knew she could trust him to protect it.

Her hands clasped at the cloth that bound her and she thrust back a little on his hand.

He kept at it for a few minutes longer, the push and pull, the careful twisting. His breath was almost louder than hers, even to her own ears. He pulled out of her again slowly, gently pressing outward as he withdrew. It was such a strange sensation, but gods, she was ready.  

He was gone, but still there. Not touching her, but the warmth of his body and the fire of his gaze were physical things surrounding her, and after a moment the scent of something faintly medicinal colored her deep, panting breaths. Then he was holding her hip again, and then he was prodding at her asshole with the head of that wonderful, thick cock.

Her toes scrabbled at the stone floor, her body arched up to receive his, but she couldn’t force herself to take him in, and he wouldn’t, not even with the mixed lubrication of her body and whatever oil or unguent he’d smeared over his cock.

But then his hand was sliding up her back and then it was in her hair and he fisted it, catching her and pulling her head back. Not hard, or far, but she arched her back to follow the movement and fire sang hot through her veins.

“Push!” he grunted and she did again, and he sank through that first tremulous resistance with a surety that made her groan. There was no keeping him out then, it was just a long, slow, drive straight into her body. When it felt like it might be too much she’d tug back on her hair and he never completely released that tension either, but he’d flex his fingers to scrape her scalp with his nails and somehow that was better.

He pushed and he pushed and he pushed until he was seated to the hilt, his heavy balls swinging against her, his pelvis pressing up against her ass. The first thrust from there was a small one, but so deep she felt it through her whole body, fingertips to toes to the tips of her ears. The second was faster.

And harder.

He pulled on her hair again, tugging back on her head to meet his next thrust. Still so deliberate, so careful, even balls-deep inside her ass.

She didn’t think she could have said it at any other time. He was probably too gone to hear her anyway and she couldn’t manage much more than a throaty whisper.

_“I love you, Uri…”_

But he froze. It was a poisonous pause. Deadly. He’d heard it. Her breath still rasped out, harsh and unsteady, his had gone silent.

She was just a fucking thief. They’d hardly known each other three months. She’d had no business letting things take such a maudlin turn in what was just supposed to be fun and fucking.

He didn’t say anything back but he let go of her hair—damn it—and grabbed her hips in both hands, suddenly losing that gentleness. He was still careful, holding both of them to a certain determined caution with his hold on her hips, but even with that he thrust into her strong and fast and his breath came hard as a great, winded beast.

She whimpered, not in pain, but in need, with his cock and his hands and his body so close, but not quite where she needed any of them to be—

And in answer his right hand dipped around the curve of her hip and slid down and found her clit again. Not gentle, pressing her between the two points of pressure, his cock in her ass and the heel of his hand on her clit, nothing delicate in that moment, just force, so much, while he came, pressing and pushing and still rhythmically rocking into her until she couldn’t tell if she came too or if she just passed out.

* * *

She knew he’d come, but he didn’t stop thrusting for several long minutes. He’d eased up on her clit when she’d come—or whatever the hell that had been—but he kept rubbing at her. It was cruelty when she was still so sensitive, so flushed and swollen, but if he had stopped she’d have cried real tears for him not to.

He let go of her hip and set that hand on the bed, leaning forward on it while he gasped.

He kissed the back of her neck. “Spar.” Only that.

Her eyes fluttered but she didn’t have the strength to open them.

* * *

She groaned when he eased out of her, feeling bruised in the best way, but still achy and weak. She wouldn’t have minded laying there for a bit while he cleaned up but with a few adept moves, and only a little grunting at going to his knees to get at her ankles, he had her untied and was helping her straighten up.

He let her go first, as far as her immediate needs, which she might have found embarrassing except that he was so matter of fact about all things physical. A world away from her pretentious family in High Rock in every conceivable way.

He washed up while she was occupied, and he warmed more water and stripped off his shirt and his shoes—he hadn’t undressed, through all that, he’d only pulled himself out—and he set more warmed water to wait for her in a basin on the bed.

She wasn’t moving as fast.

He kissed her head on his way to the chamber pot when she was done, and washed his hands again with more water from the kettle before settling on the bed beside her.

She’d perched herself, gingerly, still naked, with her legs dangling off the side but she hadn’t touched the water yet. He brushed her hair from her cheek and pulled her head towards him to kiss her temple. “Want some help?”

She gave him a deliberately pathetic look but he just grinned and then chuckled when she groaned as he pulled her across his lap. How far he’d come from needing to be reassured that every sound she made wasn’t proof that he’d done some irreparable damage, as if there was _that_ much difference in their sizes.

But she sighed and rested her head on her crossed arms while he finished cleaning her, the soft cloth dipped in warm water much more soothing than the swipe of paper she’d used at the chamber pot. He seemed to know the exact amount of pressure to apply with that warm cloth, too, to ease the sting of soreness from that unaccustomed entry.

She shifted a little, discomfort and interest mingled, but she was too tired and she knew he was, and it never moved into anything more than a gentle bathing and a sort of careful massage.

He reached over, squishing her a little, to set the basin and rag on the ground by the bed and she flipped so she could curl against his warm, bare chest, her legs draped across his lap. She could feel the cold settling in and the nearly ever-present dampness of the sewer, even the dry parts where they were taking over.

He scooped her up so he could rearrange himself, entirely on the bed and under the bear hide he used for a blanket. When he settled and set her down she snuggled closer with a happy sigh.

* * *

She woke up to him stroking her hair. He hadn’t turned down the lanterns before he’d joined her on the bed so she could see his face when she tilted her head to look up at him.

He paused and smiled at her, though there was something behind it that sent a strange pang through her. She didn’t consciously recognize the expression but she wished she hadn’t woken up, or that she hadn’t looked at him and could pretend to still be asleep until she fell back asleep.

He winced. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

And she really wished he hadn’t said that because now she definitely couldn’t.

“You can’t say something like that and expect me _not_ to worry.”

That was better, the amusement, but it didn’t entirely chase the shadows from his eyes. He put his own head back, leaving her looking at the underside of his jaw as he swallowed.

She wrestled free of his arms, though he didn’t try to hold her when she started squirming, and she leaned up on his body so she could see his face even the way he was lying.

“What?”

He rolled his eyes. “What-what? Go back to sleep.”

“Not when you’re—No.”

“Not when I’m what?” He acted like he had the right be annoyed.

“We have mind-blowing sex and now you look…”

“I’m fine.”

“Then why do you look sad?”

“I’m not.”

“Then why do you look it?”

“I don’t think I do.”

“You do.” They were nearly nose to nose, glaring.

He broke first—and made a face.

She groaned and let her head fall against his cheek. “You’re obnoxious,” she said.

“You’re one to talk. You don’t get to have all of my secrets, just for the sake of your curiosity, little thief.”

She adjusted herself more comfortably for her new position higher on his body. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.

“Why not? You have all of mine.”

He scoffed. “I doubt that.”

“All of them,” she said, and she meant it, thinking of her unplanned confession earlier. His interrogation had worked: she’d given him everything.

And he hadn’t even acknowledged it.

Her hand curled into a fist on his shoulder.

“What secrets do I have of yours?” he asked.

“All the ones that matter.”

He sighed. “And how am I supposed to know which ones matter?” he said softly.

And there it was, the strange thread of _something_ she could only call sadness, though the word was too simple for what he seemed to be expressing. Or badly trying to keep from expressing. She sat up again. “What does that mean?”

“You play things close to the vest.”

“I do not!” She did. “Not with you.” That much was true. It was insulting for him to insinuate otherwise.

“So you say.”

She poked the center of his chest, hard, with one fingertip. “I do say. And unlike some people, I say it clearly.”

He shot her a look of disbelief that made her blood boil.

She leaned up and over him again. “Your turn, then. Say what _you_ mean, orc.”

For a moment she thought he wouldn’t. His jaw was set and a muscle twitched on the right, it was so tightly clenched. “Why did you say… what you said earlier?”

They were even talking about the same damned thing.

She swallowed a growl and eased herself back down against him, tucking her head against his throat. His arms welcomed her. Azura’s star.

“Why didn’t you say it back?”

“I couldn’t tell what you meant.”

“I meant what I said.”

He swallowed again, she could feel his throat work. “Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then say it again.”

“I love you.”

Silence.

“…and I’m going to kill you,” she added, through gritted teeth.

He laughed breathlessly, and reached up and wiped his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Because you don’t?”

“No. Because I—I don’t know how to take you. You’re so…”

 _Worthless. Hopeless. Distasteful._ She could hear her family’s words, see the eyes of the highborn in the city above when they looked at her.

“…strange. Quiet and then tricky and then honest and I never know for sure which is you.”

“The one that loves you,” she said, because she was tired and at some point honesty was easier than lies, especially with him.

“If you mean it…” He shuddered under her, but held her tighter as if he was afraid she would pull away. “—even if you don’t. I love you, too. You could have better, someone who understands you, who fits into your life better than I do. But I’d be very tempted to wring their neck. It would be kinder for you to send me away before you—”

“What are you talking about?”

He made a sound: a sigh, a groan, a growl. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how humans… you don’t make sense.”

“Uri?”

“Move in with me.”

“I—okay?”

He paused. “You will?”

“Sure? If you don’t mind sharing your space.”

The Gray Fox had the nicest rooms in the new Thieves’ Guild, but they weren’t _Spar’s_ and she never slept there. She’d slept with Uri more often than not lately, but when she didn’t she slept in Idhasa’s new place. The Khajiit always welcomed her—and she was an excellent cook who generally made far too much food for just her and her kids, so friendship and familiarity weren’t the only attractors—but her friend had been dropping pointed hints about the orc for a while.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“I guess. You know everything I own fits in a sack? And pretty much everything I care about fits in my gear. Moving’s not really a big deal.”

“Yeah,” he said.

She kissed his stubbly throat. He kissed her hair.

Things were still off-balance, but this was better. She eased off of him a little, more to his side than on top. He kept saying she was so light he hardly noticed, but it just seemed polite. He kept his arms around her until they fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> EEEP! ...I haven't posted anything this explicit in quite a long time, actually... gonna go hide now... O.O
> 
> (This is the last completed fic in this series.)


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